Mask of Shadows

by Linsey Miller

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Two muttered. She stretched and tugged her arms behind her back.

  “That’s why I’m asking.” I copied her. Cool, burning relief slid down my shoulders and spine, and I sighed. “An odd place to take friends, is all. Keep secrets all you like.”

  “Says Sal, Sal, Sal who knows nothing about secrets.” Three—who must’ve overheard Ruby the first day of auditions—crossed her left arm across her chest and pulled it close. “Do this one.”

  I did and my shoulder cracked, but, Lady, was it worth it. Wasn’t fair them being my age and having all this training. Circuses traveled all around picking up kids to train and offering up a bit of joy in the aftermath of the war, but they didn’t pay you till you were in the show and had earned your keep. I’d no time for that growing up.

  “Should do your legs too.” Three grabbed her foot and pulled it over her head.

  “I’m not doing that.”

  Two leaned into Three, using her shoulder to balance, and whispered in her ear. I cocked my head to the side—couldn’t hear them.

  “Any particular reason you’re here?” Four stuffed his hands in his pockets.

  “Sunrise was nice.” I shifted backward, ready to jump and run, and covered the motion by waving to the fiery clouds spilling over the eastern spires. “Wanted to know where everyone sleeps.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Two. “We’ll switch it up.”

  “Keep you on your toes.” Four frowned.

  I grinned. “Sounds fun.”

  He ripped his hand from his pocket, and I tumbled backward, landing crouched on the roof behind the chimney. His thin throwing knife sliced through the air above me and clattered to the tiles. I darted away from them.

  “Less fun,” I shouted over my shoulder.

  Four’s booming laugh followed me across the roof. I glanced back, but they weren’t chasing. Four clapped Two on the back, and Three waved. I raced along the tiles and inhaled, head clearing with each breath.

  Thirteen

  I entered the dining hall from the strength training courtyard just as Four, Two, and Three walked in from the dorms. Three shook her head at me. She nudged Four.

  They’d have been good friends to have. They were good friends.

  And they’d have to kill each other eventually.

  I took the seat next to Four and fanned my dress over my knees. There wasn’t much use for pretty things with Grell, but if our coming days were all push-ups and stances, I’d take my chances. I could move just as easily in this dress.

  And it made me feel better. I’d not been able to wear a real one for ages.

  “If I were, hypothetically, to talk about you behind your back,” Four said, pouring a cup of tea and swirling a spoonful of sweet orange blossom honey into it, “how should I refer to you?”

  I grabbed the honey—of course the palace had fancy honey to waste on people doomed to die—and spooned it into my cup.

  “I’ve got a giant number stitched to my mask.” This was easier with people I only met once and who only knew how I was that day. Most everyone else wanted me to pick one, make addressing me easier on them by denying myself. I was already dressing so they could get it right. The least they could do was try. I didn’t see why I had to choose. “Who do I look like?”

  “Someone who’s going to regret the sweetness of her tea after we start training.”

  Two laughed into her stuffed roll.

  “Address me however I look.” I was both. I was neither. I was everything, but that wasn’t exactly a friendly conversation between strangers trying to kill each other. Least he asked nicely. “Why are you talking about me?”

  “Either way, eat some real food.” He smeared half-melted butter over a thick slice of bread and took a bite. “I said it was hypothetical. It means I theorized—”

  “Means you guessed, but no one asks that if they’re not really talking.” I glanced at him over the rim of my cup, honey already too sweet for me. I’d never heard the word before now, but I’d no desire for everyone in the room to know that. “You really want to play teacher in a fight to the death?”

  Two snorted. “He does it to everyone.”

  “The eternal older brother,” Three said, popping a handful of berries into her mouth.

  Four scowled, finally looking more seventeen than thirty.

  “Stop pouting.” I took another sip of tea and grinned. “You’ll wrinkle faster.”

  Four’s mouth snapped into a straight, unwrinkled line.

  Abel, Amethyst’s servant, led Fifteen into the breakfast nook with the Left Hand. They’d skipped over most of the other auditioners.

  I took another sip of tea. The trio hadn’t been invited to speak with the Left Hand today. “Why haven’t you tried to kill me?”

  “Rude saying Four didn’t try,” Two said. “He’s been throwing knives since he started walking.”

  He’d not been trying to hit me. I’d seen knife throwers often enough to know what aiming looked like.

  “I like you.” Four brushed the crumbs from his mask and wiped his hands clean. “And I don’t enjoy killing people I like.”

  “I’m not leaving. Have the decency to do it quick, as quickly as you’ll do it for each other when the time comes.”

  Two squeezed her eyes shut and Three winced.

  Four glanced over my shoulder. “I heard you that day. Nothing personal.”

  “Twenty-Three?” Abel leaned over my shoulder, purple collar bright in the corner of my eyes. “The Left Hand would like to see you.”

  I downed the last of my too-sweet tea and marched to the nook, trying to keep the exhausted shaking from my knees. Emerald wore green again—she lived up to her name. Ruby turned to me when I entered, red mask at odds with his sun-yellow clothes and black stitching.

  “Don’t bother sitting.” Ruby held up his hand. “One question.”

  “Do you want to start learning how to read and write now?” Emerald leaned forward, brass nails tapping her mask. “If you progress further in the competition, you must attend tutoring, but you may start now if you wish.”

  “Yes.” I’d never had a chance, but if they were offering and it made me more likely to be Opal, I’d do it. It hadn’t been useful before. “When?”

  Emerald glanced at Ruby. “Come here after sword work. Your tutor is a lady of the court, and you will treat her as such. You will be safe during these lessons, but we will be watching. Any attempts on your life are allowed the moment your time ends. Any actions that put her in danger are not. Understand?”

  “I won’t get her hurt.” I bowed to Emerald. “Thank you.”

  She flicked her hands to the door. I joined the others eyeing the doors to the courtyard. Were the others they’d called in getting tutoring too or something else? I’d have to find out.

  But how?

  I was trapped in training. Amethyst ran us into the ground with stances that burned through my legs and raged in my center. I made it through slightly stronger and sweatier than the day before, but I couldn’t talk to anyone or sneak away without Amethyst knowing. Five watched from his perch the whole time.

  The downside of all this training was that I’d barely be able to stay awake tonight and survive tomorrow. The ones who weren’t training had all day to scout us and all night to kill us while they were well rested and ready. They weren’t exhausted to the bone.

  Tutoring would be a rest—time to gather my thoughts and learn what all the fuss was about with the nobles.

  I tried to think during archery, mapping out the buildings and paths between me and my room, but with each shift of my feet and draw of the bow, my thoughts and fingers shuddered away from my control. Emerald clucked her tongue at me.

  “You won’t hit anything shaking like that.” She slid a finger down my bow, steadying my aim and moving it toward where she’d pointed. “You can’t even fully draw it.”

  I pulled my elbow back. “Not yet.”

  “Not soon,” she said as she wan
dered away, already uninterested and focused on Five’s form.

  His feet were wrong today. His arms were perfect.

  He was definitely an archer and definitely faking.

  By the time we got to sword work, I could barely grip the hilt and Ruby was having none of it.

  “Harder! Tighter grip.” He beckoned me forward and blocked my lunge. “You’re locking your wrist. Your arm is too tight. You won’t be able to move fast enough.”

  He attacked before I could move. He ripped the sword from my hands and twisted around, sending Eleven’s sword flying. Two, Four, Five, and Fifteen—who’d shown up sporting a black eye and a limp—shifted around us in a circle. Ruby brandished his sword at Eleven and me.

  “Pick them up.” Ruby pinched what would’ve been the bridge of his nose if his mask had one. “Face each other. Eleven attacks first and Twenty-Three blocks. If either of you drops your sword before we’re done, you’re disqualified. Don’t be predictable, but be consistent.”

  Eleven picked up her sword. I knelt, tearing off my glove and coating my hand in dust to help my grip. We stepped across from each other.

  “Raise.”

  Eleven lifted her sword. She couldn’t kill me, not outright while everyone watched, but training was wearing me down. After archery, my arms were all lead joints and shaky muscles. The end-of-day bells had to chime soon. Ruby couldn’t keep us forever.

  “One.”

  I whipped my sword to my right thigh, point down with the back of my hand bared to Eleven. Her blade smacked mine near the hilt.

  The shock rattled up my arm.

  “Two.”

  Eleven pulled her arm back—too far, too slow—and I held my position. Her blade swung for my lower left side, and I rammed mine into hers as she nicked my leggings. Her arm ricocheted back.

  But she held.

  Ruby’s third call never came. Eleven looked first—Ruby had the other auditioners paired off and was lazily circling them. I lunged for Eleven.

  She backtracked. I lunged again. She blocked, blades scraping down each other. I couldn’t kill her and she couldn’t kill me, but there were a dozen ways to make life terrible without killing someone. I drew my knife with my other hand, darting forward one last time.

  I ran my knife down her sword arm.

  Eleven shrieked. Her fingers loosened, and Ruby turned, red light blinding in the evening sun. The bells rang.

  Eleven’s sword clattered to the ground between us.

  “Acceptable.” Ruby collected the swords from the others, pausing before Eleven and me. “But slow.”

  Eleven exhaled. “I’m still in?”

  “Yes.” Ruby shook his head. “Hardly. You two are awful.”

  I sheathed my knife. “Working on it.”

  “Of course you are but so is everyone else. And the ones who don’t have to work on it? I love people I don’t even have to talk to.” Ruby cocked his head toward the fading bells. “Love dinner even more, and you two are keeping me from it.”

  Eleven and I walked side by side to the dining hall with Ruby’s red gaze on our backs. Eleven fidgeted with each step—nails picking at the shallow gash. I steered clear of her.

  She turned toward the dorms, and Ruby vanished down some side hall. I slipped into the dining hall with the willowy servant, Dimas, and smoothed a hand down my dress, leaving a trail of grime behind me. If they were testing me to see how well I did with nobles, they should’ve let me bathe first. I opened the door to the nook.

  “Hello,” a soft voice said. “I suppose enough propriety to knock is too much to ask?”

  I dropped into a bow, words failing and my gaze stuck on the pretty, stormy girl I’d robbed seven days ago.

  Fourteen

  At least the bow was low and long enough to be proper. Probably. I’d lost all ability to move.

  “You may sit.” She smiled, dark gaze settling on the mask covering my face. The face she didn’t know, couldn’t know. “Etiquette tutoring comes later, and we don’t have time to waste if you’re to learn anything today.”

  I swallowed. There were days and masks between us, and she didn’t recognize me.

  “Thank you.” I cleared my throat. She was only some lady I’d robbed, and there were plenty of them in the world. Couldn’t get disqualified for that. “For agreeing to this.”

  She laughed softly. “I was asked by Our Queen to share my knowledge. No need to thank me.”

  Of course she didn’t agree to it. Erlends always thought they were smarter and better read than anyone else—kept enough records to drown the nation in paper—and hoarded all their knowledge.

  “Let’s not disappoint Our Queen,” I said, watching the noble’s face to see how she handled the phrase. Most old lords flinched enough that I could see it from afar. “How would you like to start?”

  She only smiled and leaned forward, copper rose locket tumbling out of her dress. “Introductions—I’m Elise de Farone.”

  Elise de Farone. Unmarried. Daughter to the lord who ruled over the northeastern stretch of Erlend—Igna now—flush against the mountains and bordering the lands outside of Our Queen’s control. I’d heard nothing about her parents being involved in the massacre, but most of them used secret names.

  All except two: Lord Horatio del Seve and his backstabbing merchant, Shan de Pau. Seve ruled the lands that had neighbored Nacea and begrudgingly served Our Queen, paying just enough taxes that she let him be. Pau had nothing to do with the massacre, but he jacked up the prices of everything after the war, fenced stolen Nacean property, and ran half of Igna into debt. Everyone wanted him dead.

  No one had managed it yet.

  “Nice to meet you, Lady Farone.” I nodded. Might as well play nice for now. “I’m Twenty-Three.”

  She sniffed, glasses rising in distaste, and swept a curl behind her ear. “You really go by numbers?”

  “We really do.” I twisted my gloved hands in my lap—I was still wearing her ring—and fought the heat curling in the pit of my stomach. She better not have noticed it. “Least you’ll be able to tell us apart.”

  “I doubt I’d confuse you with anyone, Twenty-Three.” She fiddled with her papers, staring at me over the rim of her glasses. “You’re comfortable speaking Erlenian and Alonian?”

  “Since I was a kid.”

  “Let’s start with Alonian.” Elise pulled a thin book from her stack, hands only marred by smudges of charcoal and thin paper cuts, and laid it out before me. “It was the first language of Our Queen and has fewer conjugations. You’ll pick up Erlenian quickly after that.”

  I grinned. “If I’m still alive.”

  Elise dropped her brush pen. Soft-skinned nobles weren’t used to gallows humor, and Lady de Farone was soft all over—except for her tongue. Teasing her was the most fun I could have without risking death.

  “Just joking.” I picked up the pen and set it near her hand. The chubby doodles of a smaller, younger hand decorated the pages. I’d fought more people than five times my age, yet I was learning out of a children’s book. I recognized the letters, but I couldn’t make sense of them jumbled together. “So how does reading work?”

  “Letters,” she said without missing a beat. “Which ones do you recognize?”

  I studied the alphabet. The pages were old, yellowed, and crinkled at the ears. I traced the curves of a cat, the left half a sideways arch.

  “Cat.” The letters were twisted to form the animal, but I recognized the word. The Cat and The Fiddle was the most popular music hall in Kursk, and I walked under that sign near every month. “The ears give it away.”

  “They do that.” Elise grinned. She made the hard sound at the start of “cat,” her fingers drawing the first pointy letter in the air before I could respond. “We’ll go over what sound each letter makes, and you’ll write them down in charcoal. Messier, but if you never learned to write, probably easier than starting off with a pen. You’ll learn the sounds and the shapes at the same time.”

&
nbsp; I narrowed my eyes at her. “All right.”

  “It has two more letters that make the last two sounds.”

  “The triangle and the corner.” I leaned across the table. “You’re being awfully nice to an assassin.”

  “Would-be assassin.” She licked her lips and leaned back, tilting her chin up. “The triangle is the middle sound. Say it.”

  I did, stumbling over where the sound ended, and plucked up the charcoal. “And the corner is last.”

  “Good.” Elise wrote on my paper. The letters flowed and peaked in beautiful lines. “Hold it like a pen, not a knife. Glide, don’t stab.”

  Hilarious.

  I stared at the letters on the page and drew a terrible copy of her script.

  “Your turn.” Elise clucked her tongue and repeated the sound. “Cat—like a burglar.”

  I dropped the charcoal and narrowed my eyes.

  “I’m surprised to see you here.” She grinned, only one side of her mouth lifting up in a twisted smirk, before tossing her hair over her shoulder. Neck bared and completely unafraid. “You couldn’t even rob me properly.”

  I froze. The words I’d meant to say fell back down my throat.

  “How?” I’d worn a mask. I wore one now. I’d new clothes, new dirt, and a new name. How did she know me?

  Lady, don’t let her be turning me over to warrant officers.

  “The mask.” She gestured to my face and lounged back in her chair. “I’ve only ever seen your eyes and mouth, a little bit of your cheeks, and your voice is the same.”

  How was some noble girl from Erlend better at finding out secrets than me?

  Elise reached across the table and picked up my hand, fingertips walking along my palm till they reached the ring.

  “And I doubt you’re a member of Our Queen’s high court,” she said. “I’ll take my ring back, thank you.”

  “Right.” I tugged off my glove—useless anyway, if she could see the sigil through the thin fabric—and offered her the ring. One thing from Our Queen and of course I couldn’t keep it. “Here. I washed it.”

  She took it from me and slid it back onto her finger, grinning the entire time. “Why’d you wash it?”

  I bit my cheek, fighting down my exasperation. Because I’d wrapped it in bloodied bandages and wanted to own something pretty for the first time in my life.